5 Simple Steps to Optimize Your Website Speed and Improve the Customer Experience

We have come a long way and have seen how busy people are these days. So, providing quick access is very important these days. In the world of digital marketing, we all expect fast-loading sites. Giving your users an optimal experience on your website is important. Anything less isn't worth the wait in today's time-poor world.

If your website is slow, then you probably haven't thought about your website even for a little while. Your website speed is an essential part of your site's performance. Proper website optimization can make your site effective in achieving your goals.

What Is Customer Experience?

Customer experience is the mixed interaction a customer has with your brand. It maps every touchpoint made by the customer. Customer experience is about all about showing up for your customers according to their needs. It is also about making sure all their interactions with the company are memorable and meaningful.

What is User Experience (UX)? 

User experience refers to the way an end user interacts with your brand's website or app. User Experience (UX) Design focuses on improving the way users interact and engage with your brand's site. Since most customers will visit a website prior to purchasing from a brand, or even exclusively shop online, UX is a critical part of the overall customer experience. 

One important factor of User Experience is Website Speed. 

How does Website Speed affect the User Experience? 

People are not interested in waiting, and they will leave the website that takes more than three seconds to load. The generation is looking to get information in a single click. 

If your website is slow, customers won't bother waiting, and despite all your efforts, the customer experience will eventually affect your website performance. Some possible reasons for a slow website are:

• Slow hosting

• Huge images

• Complicated file formats

• A lot of plugins

• Unwanted redirects

If you can speed up your website load time, you will get a better edge over your competitors. Additionally, it will help your website rank higher on search engines, therefore making your brand easier to find without paying for clicks. 

So, how do you go about it?

Here are five ways to optimize your website speed and improve the overall customer experience.

1. Choose a hosting plan and provider that will meet your business needs

When we consider web hosting, there are many factors to consider while choosing to stay with your existing plan or move to a new provider. You should make sure the hosting service has a proper 24x7 customer service. Checking out the reviews of their services on third-party review sites is crucial. 

While browsing, what you are actually doing is trying to access remote files found in web servers, and your computer's speed will decide how fast you access the requested pages. The same goes for web hosting: highly effective web hosts invest in web server architecture to ensure that every page on those web servers run at full speed.

2. Use Website Images Sensibly

Images and files are essential tools for your sites as they help increase conversions, elicit the audience's emotion, and tell stories about your website. It would be difficult to develop an effective website without the use of visual content. If the images negatively affect your site's performance, you must fix it soon as Google will also punish your site by ranking it lower. 

While selecting a file type, consider the purpose of your image. Choose the format that results in the smallest size while retaining the quality. Make sure your images are not very large. 

3. Select Appropriate Apps or Plugins

Plugins offer a variety of features and functionality. Some plugins load assets like images, JavaScript files, and CSS stylesheets at the front-end, while others are used in making database calls at the back-end. Most plugins require HTTP access to load assets, and each request will impact your website's page load time.

With proper installation and set up, website plugins will have minimal impact on your website speed. However, a conflict between plugins can impact your website negatively. So, avoid using too many plugins that are making too many requests to load assets and files. Also, make sure the plugins you use are up to date to ensure a smooth going website.

4. Have a mobile-first design for your website

Mobile-first is a way of designing a mobile version of your website before the desktop version. Responsive design is fine, but mobile-first is ideal. There are three key benefits to mobile-first:

• Improves user experience for your website

• Works amazingly for backward compatibility

• Google gives great importance to mobile-first websites and favours them in search engine results.

So, before coding and designing your website, gear your focus towards a great mobile design to get a better, faster and simpler web experience across all screens and devices. 

5. Have Content Delivery Networks

CDN is a geographically located server that host copies of your website's resources for delivering content based on the user's location. CDN helps to bring your content closer to the geographical location of your site visitor.

Using CDN can deliver content to your users at a faster pace hence improving the overall customer experience!

Final Thoughts

It's high time you start improving your customer experience strategy. As many customers say that they will never return to a slow site means that you should be keeping them happy with a well-optimized website by incorporating the aspects mentioned above. You will be surprised to see the difference it makes!

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This article is a Guest Post from TechWyse. Author Bio:

 Faiz Varghese is a social media marketer at TechWyse (an SEO agency based in Toronto) who is a knowledge craving techy. He loves to write quality content on the internet and has a passion for his job.

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